Patricia Stump, IBM Endicott
stump@vnet.ibm.com
Terry Huber, DSD Laboratories, Inc.
huber@dsd.paramax.com
The Management Issues Group was a diverse group made up of representatives from the Department of Defense, Defense Contractors, commercial organizations and universities. During initial discussion, the group discussed the differences among the impacts of reuse on business practices and business decisions on each of these enterprises. In particular, the group discussed how each of these enterprises approach incentives and how customer involvement is different.
In commercial enterprises, the practice of software reuse is internal to the developer. Although a user may indirectly benefit from an organization developing software using software reuse processes, (faster time to market, lower product price, etc.), the process is unknown to them. This is true due to a ``off-the-shelf'' as opposed to ``made to order'' environment. The customer is interested in the final product and the product sold is usually mass-produced. On the other hand, in the DoD (and Government) environments, the developer (contractor) is in a ``make to order'' environment and the Government customer is involved in the process. The involvement of the Government in this environment includes control over the software development process. Commercial enterprises, as well as Government and DoD organizations are interested in developing an incentive program for its employees. However, the Government is also interested in developing an incentive program for its contractors, which would be tied into the acquisition process.
The remaining discussion during the group session primarily focused on the ``commercial'' enterprise.